True Cross

One of those movies that I had seen show up here and there in the listings, but had never gotten around to watching, is Vera Cruz. It looks like Pluto TV has the rights to it among the streaming services, and when I noticed it was one one or another of their movie channels, I decided that I'd finally watch it so that I could do a review of it here.

The movie starts off by informing us that at the same time the US Civil War ended, Mexico was going through a war of its own. The French had sent Maximilian (George Macready) to be a puppet ruler of Mexico in France's interest, and needless to say the Mexican people mostly didn't like this. Benito Juárez (not seen here), led the revolt against Maximilian. More important, however, is that a modest number of Americans, especially those who had fought for the Confederacy, streamed southward into Mexico to make a new life for themselves or to try to make a fortune to regain what they had lost in the US Civil War....

One of thos men is Ben Trane (Gary Cooper), whose horse pulls up lame after the opening titles. Ben is going to have to destroy the horse and get a new one, and he arrives at a small place owned by another American who has multiple horses, Joe Erin (Burt Lancaster). Joe is a bit wary of strangers, even if they're fellow Americans, and you wonder whether Trane is going to be safe with Erin.

Eventually, the two, with a band of American mercenaries in tow, wind up meeting Maximilian and his solders, led by Marquis Henri (Cesar Romero). Maximilian has an important job for them. The Countess Marie (Denise Darcel) needs to get to the port of Veracruz and from there to France, presumably to rally the French in support of Maxilimian. But with Juárez's men all around, that's going to be difficult. So perhaps the Americans could form an armed escort to get Marie to Veracruz. Maximilian, of course, plans to have the Americans killed which would get a bunch of his problems out of the way.

But there's more to the convoy than just the countess, and both Trane and Erin figure out what that something is. The Countess' carriage seems to have a lower clearance than expected, and when they investigate, they realize that the carriage is carrying a whole bunch of gold. That money is going to be used to get more men and arms from Europe for the fight against Juárez. It also goes without saying that once Trane and Erin find that gold, they act like they'd want it for themselves, and not necessarily to share between the two of them.

But still, they're going to have to get to Veracruz so that they can abscond by boat with that gold. And the Juaristas are going to be chasing them all the way. Perhaps they'll kill the Americans before they can turn on each other....

Vera Cruz was made by Burt Lancaster's production company, so it's unsurprising that he gets the showy part. Of course, he was also in that earlier stage of his career where, in action movies like this, he'd really mug it up for the camera. Thankfully he doesn't have Nick Cravat with him this time to be even more obnoxious. But Lancaster comes across as less likable, and for me it wasn't just the way the script was written.

Vera Cruz was also filmed on location in Mexico, which is a big plus for the production; up to this point Hollywood westerns hadn't really been filmed south of the border even if they were set in Mexico. The motley crew of American mercenaries also gave some future stars fairly early roles, such as Ernest Borgnine and Charles Bronson (still credited here with his birth name Buchinsky).

All in all, Vera Cruz is a well-made western, and not a bad one, although there's a reason why it doesn't have the reputation that some of the other westerns of the era have.